Amazon officially marked the two-year anniversary of its decision to open a second headquarters, HQ2, in Arlington Monday, and it announced several donations to Washington-area organizations totaling $9 million.
The latest donations by Amazon focus on housing affordability, racial equality, health care and the arts. The donations are as follows:
- $3 million to four legal service providers to help support families, including Legal Services of Northern Virginia, Virginia Poverty Law Center, Bread for the City’s Legal Clinic and Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia.
- $1 million to organizations advancing racial equality, including Bridges to Independence, Offender Aid and Restoration and the Arlington branch of NAACP Scholarship Program.
- $1 million to community health facilities, including the Arlington Free Clinic, Alexandria Neighborhood Health, Children’s National Hospital and the Virginia Hospital Center.
- $500,000 to economic opportunity, job training and literacy organizations, including La Cocina VA, DC Central Kitchen’s Culinary Job Training Program and the Literacy Council of Northern Virginia.
- $3.5 million to other community organizations supporting small businesses, military families, the environment and the arts.
The $3 million given to legal service providers is intended to support families in need of immediate legal assistance for housing-related issues.
“With the significant increase in eviction cases caused by COVID-19, the number of underrepresented litigants is just getting worse,” said Jim Ferguson, executive director of Legal Services of Northern Virginia.
“We will be able to hire more lawyers, and far fewer low-income families will end up on the street.”
Amazon, which received state and county incentives totaling $550 million as part of its HQ2 expansion, has pledged to create 25,000 jobs in Arlington in coming years. It currently leases space in several Crystal City buildings and this summer, surpassed 1,000 hires and is currently filling more than 500 open positions.
Its twin, 2.1-million-square-foot high-rises near Pentagon City Mall, in what is called Metropolitan Park, are expected to be completed in 2023.